To start a year dedicated to technological innovation in the Aix Marseille Provence, Traxens was an almost obvious choice. Founded in 2012, Michel Fallah’s company has quickly become a reference […]

To start a year dedicated to technological innovation in the Aix Marseille Provence, Traxens was an almost obvious choice. Founded in 2012, Michel Fallah’s company has quickly become a reference in the world of B2B IoT with its connected boxes continuously informing container operators, both at sea and on rail. A service that has seduced industry leaders such as CMA CGM and MSC (both have invested in Traxens capital), and SNCF, the French railway company using it to set up its digital freight service.

2018, explained to me Tim Baker, marketing and communication director at Traxes, will not be about brand new technological developments. « Today, our technology is OK, it has been qualified by the shipowners. There will be some firmware changes, for example to optimize the power consumption due to GPS, but that’s it. The question we want to answer is do we have value for the customer? Our goal is to sell the data, in what way is it useful? » This discourse is heard today at most start-ups and connected-object companies, which make data, and not material developed to collect them, the true wealth.

Data from 10,000 Containers

Due to its (relative) seniority, Traxens benefits from a large volume of information. « We are currently gathering data from nearly 10,000 containers. It must be considered that the readability of a shipping container comes from a long way, this is the first time that shipowners can know where it is day after day. And we also get a lot of other information, such as ambient temperature, shocks, door openings, … »

To make them valuable, the company will focus on datavisualization, rather than merely providing raw Excel files. The objective is also to be able to propose a representation of the information not only visual but especially evolutionary, according to client’s emerging needs. « Our clients are refining their research. They say to themselves, if I have all this, then maybe I can ask for more. »

And that’s just the beginning. By 2018, Traxens could deliver as many as 100,000 connected devices, so it has ten times more data to analyze.